Posts Tagged “California_Budget”

California’s Red Lining – The San Diego GOP – The Sacramento Bee reports that only 31 percent of residents are registered Republicans and 44 percent Democrats.
No Republican holds a statewide office.
In 2010, Gov. Jerry Brown won 53.1 percent of the vote, while Sen. Barbara Boxer was reelected with 52.1 percent.
California has 34 Democrats in the House, compared with only 19 Republicans. Both of its senators are Democrats.
The California State Assembly roster has 52 Democrats out of 80 representatives, and the Senate roster lists 25 Democrats out of 40 State senators.
Conservative victories in San Diego also include passing, by nearly 75 percent, Proposition A, which is a countywide ban of project labor agreements. Nearby Oceanside and Chula Vista passed similar bans. The old rules allowed unions were to control municipal construction projects and avoid competition.

Republicans lead in voter registration, too. According to a February 10 report, Republicans have 3,053 more registered voters in San Diego.

So what can the California Republican party learn from these victories?

Art Pulaski, the federation's executive secretary-treasurer, said his organization has made no decision on an initiative but that, "We're certainly not going to sit back and watch the state fall apart."

He said, "We are going to move forward."

A voter initiative is one alternative Brown is considering to put tax extensions on a ballot without Republican support in the Legislature. The Democratic governor has not said how he might proceed.

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But, the unions and Democrats, particularly Jerry Brown wanted political cover from the GOP.

They could have done this from the beginning.

Maher, Palin and Arianna – Hey, Arianna! Andrew Breitbart called Van Jones a “punk.” Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a “cunt.” Which one did you ban again?

Process issue will define CA GOP or NOT – The passage last year of Proposition 14, which replaced part primaries with an "open" primary and run-off in California, has set off a bitter fight inside the California Republican Party, which heads into a convention this weekend in Sacramento girding for a procedural battle that will shape its identity.

The conservative party leadership, led by outgoing party Chairman Ron Nehring, has proposed that the party choose and designate a candidate despite the changed system, and that only the party choice be able to benefit from — among other things — crucial state party financial support.

Members of Congress and state legislators, meanwhile, are pushing back quite hard, as in an email earlier this month signed by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and others:

[Nehring's proposed] system forces endorsements – even when there are good Republicans running against good Republicans. Worse, should the "endorsed" candidate lose the June election, the actual winner is still not the official nominee of the GOP and could be denied any Republican resources. This is a disaster in the making!

The second option is an alternative bylaw amendment supported by a vast majority of the Congressional delegation as well as overwhelming majorities in the Senate and Assembly Caucuses that allows the Republican Party to endorse when special circumstances arise – when a Republican otherwise might not make it onto the November ballot or when liberal interest groups or labor unions are trying to elect a sham "Republican" candidate who will not vote for Republican principles.

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The real problem is that in California with the open primary and top two system of elections, there is really NO reason to be a registered member of a political party.

GOP Insiders want to preserve their power of the purse (for what it is worth since the Cal GOP is broke)and endorsements. Exisiting office holders don't want the smoke-filled room full of conservative activists calling the shots – as they routinely stack the County GOP Central Committees.

If the Ron Nehring proposal passes, there will be a flood of Republicans re-registering to Decline to State.

And, why not?

Dan Walters: Brown-GOP budget talks hit a wall – Confusion reigned in the Capitol Monday over whether Gov. Jerry Brown's overtures to five Republican senators to support his budget plan had utterly failed, or whether suspension of their talks is merely a temporary setback.

Whatever the case, it appeared that Brown's hopes of placing $10 billion-plus a year in tax extensions on a June 7 special-election ballot had been dashed. Even if a budget agreement eventually emerges, the election will almost certainly be delayed.

That would seem to be a minor hiccup, but having an election on June 7 – before the summer doldrums set in – has been one of several conditions Brown hoped would give his plan its best chance of winning voter support.

He also wants at least a veneer of bipartisan support, no active business opposition, a simple yes or no on a single measure, and perhaps an all-mail election to create an optimal climate for what would be, under any circumstances, an iffy situation – asking voters to raise taxes by about $1,000 per family per year in the midst of the worst recession in 80 years.

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I doubt the tax extensions would pass in any case. The California economy sucks and unemployment is too high.

The Democrat welfare state has caught up with the taxpayer funders and the cuts will not be pretty.

Hypocrisy from California Tax Hike Backers? – The Amazon Tax – Capitol Confidential has previously reported on legislation introduced by California Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner that seeks to impose a new, and unconstitutional, tax on out-of-state, online retailers including (ironically) a number of eBay users. Capitol Confidential has since learned that a prominent corporate sponsor of such efforts is retail giant Target, and that a number of other big retailers back the legislation, too. According to one source, that group includes Bloomingdale’s.
So what if neither Target nor Bloomingdale’s collected and remitted sales/use taxes in states where they sell online to customers but in which they maintain no physical presence (the practice Skinner’s bill aims to ban by redefining the concept of “nexus”)? Based on what appears on both companies’ websites when one inputs an order using the data of a resident of such states, it appears both corporations are willingly taking advantage of the same constitutional case law as the online retailers targeted by Skinner’s legislation to avoid tax liability.
Here is a screenshot of the “review” page related to a Target transaction input using a Vermont customer’s information. Target’s website indicates that there are no Target stores in Vermont, and this is the final page at which customers can make adjustments, or discard the transaction:

“It has nothing to do with a decision [about running for president in 2012]. The Governor said the other day that she will make a decision about that in the coming months,” Tim Crawford, the treasurer of Palin’s PAC, told National Review Online.

Palin will be the keynote speaker at the Colorado Christian University’s “Tribute to the Troops” event, which the university describes as “a military and veterans appreciation rally and charity benefit.” The benefit will be held in Lakewood, Colo. on May 2, the same day Politico and NBC News have scheduled the first GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

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Right.

Sarah Palin is not going to engage in a debate for an office she will NOT seek.

Sarah Palin to Attend October’s Testimony Of Faith at Liberty University – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will need strong support from social conservatives to win the Republican nomination for president in 2012 should she decide to run. One indication that Palin is attuned to this reality is her scheduled appearance at Liberty University’s Extraordinary Women Conference.

The News & Advance, a newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia, reported Tuesday that Palin will speak at the October 7-8 conference, mere months before presidential primary elections.

“Extraordinary Women is pleased to announce that Governor Sarah Palin will be sharing her testimony of faith with us at the 2011 Lynchburg Ewomen conference,” the group wrote on its website.

Palin’s speech will be simulcast to 1,000 churches around the country. Tickets for the event are being sold for between $49 and $89.

Current Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. wrote in a statement to The News & Advance, “Governor Palin is greatly admired by our Liberty University faculty, staff and students for her patriotism and her determination to stand up for what is right despite vicious and unrelenting attacks against her and her family.”

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Will she be a non-announced candidate by then?

"Today we met again with Governor Brown out of a mutual desire to keep the conversation moving forward. Until we are told otherwise, we will be optimistic that the Governor is working hard to find the necessary support for the key reforms we have put forward. But we are realistic. Getting to a constructive agreement involves difficult compromise. Although various interest groups may not have an appetite for real change, we believe that the public is demanding it."

The group is made up of Senators Tom Berryhill, of Modesto; Sam Blakeslee, of San Luis Obispo; Anthony Cannella, of Ceres (Stanislaus County); Bill Emmerson, of Hemet (Riverside County); and Tom Harman, of Huntington Beach.

Here's the start of our original post:

Budget machinations are continuing at the Capitol today, one day after a group of Senate Republicans announced that they had reached an impasse with the Gov. Jerry Brown.

While the Democratic governor may not yet have Republican votes for his budget plan, he is continuing to win support from two of the GOP's core constituencies: the business community and law enforcement groups.

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So, will these State Senators well out the GOP caucus?

Heads on a stick they go……

E-mails reveal possible Wis Gov Scott Walker concessions on union bill – Gov. Scott Walker's office released documents Tuesday detailing now stalled talks with Senate Democrats in Illinois about his union bargaining bill, showing his office is willing to give on some aspects of the proposal but also frustrating one senator involved in the confidential talks.

The e-mails showed ideas and counteroffers made by the Republican governor's aides and two Democrats as they sought some resolution that would allow Democrats to come back to the state. Senate Democrats have been holed up in Illinois since Feb. 17, when they left Wisconsin to block a vote on Walker's budget-repair bill.

The emails were first released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open-records request and within minutes were then emailed out to other news outlets. The Journal Sentinel also first reported Friday on some of the proposals in the documents.

The bill as proposed by Walker and approved by the Assembly last month would repeal bargaining by public employee unions over their benefits and work conditions, leaving only bargaining over wages with a cap based on the rate of inflation, barring a referendum. The measure has sparked massive protests at the Capitol in recent weeks.

The two Democratic senators, Bob Jauch of Poplar and Tim Cullen of Janesville, have met face-to-face in recent days with both Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Walker aides.

There are, as yet, no definitively declared candidates. The closest is former 3rd District Supervisor Todd Spitzer. Couple of weeks ago, I saw an e-mail from a wealthy donor soliciting support for Spitzer and stating he would be announcing about now, but no word as yet.

Former Assemblyman and U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore is actively looking at the race, as well.

But let’s get to the poll, conducted for FR by SmithJohnson Research. The survey was conducted March 1-2 of 300 registered voters in the 3rd District. The margin of error is 5.6%.

The poll tests a five-candidate field of Spitzer, DeVore, Orange Mayor Carolyn Cavecche, Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang and Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu but the most interesting stuff comes from the one-on-one poll testing of a Spitzer-DeVore contest.

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This will be a race to watch.

Sen. John McCain back fundraising in California this week – Former 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, a strong supporter of gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman, is back fundraising in the Bay Area this month — this time at a pricey benefit to fund campaigns to win a 2012 Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

The Arizona U.S. Senator stars at a what's being touted as "an intimate roundtable breakfast" on March 22 for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the venture capital enclave of Menlo Park.

The invites specifically say the purpose of the McCain fundraising is "to gain a majority in the Senate in 2012!"

McCain's CA visit comes the weekend after the state GOP's big convention in Sacramento, where Mississipi Gov. Haley Barbour will deliver the Saturday night keynote address; but so far, McCain has no announced plans to visit the 3-day statewdie party gathering starting March 18.

Anti-tax groups contend that voting to place taxes before voters would violate GOP legislators' no-new-taxes pledges. There is, however, an obvious difference between enacting taxes directly and placing them on the ballot. And since anti-tax groups routinely insist that taxes should require voter approval, chalk up one for hypocrisy.

Likewise, the anti-tax groups also insist that voters have already spoken when they rejected a 2009 budget package that would have kept the temporary taxes in place for a longer period.

Wrong. The length of the income, sales and car tax increases was not directly before voters in 2009; the election hinged largely on other issues.

Brown and supporters of the taxes stress that they are temporary – an additional five years – and that the proceeds would go to local governments and schools.

In fact, however, they would go to local agencies only because those agencies would be taking on functions that are being shifted from the state, so the net effect of the added revenues would be to take pressure off the state budget.

The argument that the taxes would be temporary is also suspect, since under Brown's plan the state would be constitutionally obligated to pay for the programmatic shifts to local governments even after the tax extensions expired.

A permanent obligation financed by a temporary revenue stream is folly; it's a better than 50-50 bet that were Brown's plan adopted, five years later he or his successor would be seeking to extend the taxes again or make them permanent.

Brown also contends that the tax extensions would fill only half the budget hole, with sharp spending cuts, especially in health and welfare, filling the rest.

But many of the cuts are actually funding shifts; Democrats are scaling back the real cuts and many of them would either require federal waivers, be subject to litigation, or both.

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The GOP doesn't want to raise taxes and wants cuts in California's State Budget.

Jerry Brown and the Democrats don't want to cut spending and wish to shift responsibilities and funding tothe cities and counties who have no easy way to pay for them.

Chiang's report, adding fuel to the argument that redevelopment agencies are sucking up precious funds with little to show for their efforts, was immediately condemned by redevelopment advocates as politically motivated. A furious battle is playing out between the state and cities over the governor's proposal to scrap redevelopment entirely.

Cities launched a statewide radio ad blitz and petition-gathering campaign Monday urging legislators to protect the state's approximately 400 municipal redevelopment agencies. Gov. Jerry Brown is recommending that much of the $5 billion a year in property taxes they collect be sent instead to schools, counties and the state.

One ad called the move "a scheme" that will "put thousands more out of work."

The California Professional Firefighters and the California School Employees Assn. countered with a campaign on radio stations in Sacramento. "While deputies are facing layoffs, fire stations are closing and local school funding is slashed, redevelopment agencies are spending taxpayer money for stadiums, parking garages and 'mermaid bars,' " one declared.

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Read the entire article.

California Redevelopment Agencies have been full of abuse for decades. Before there was plenty of tax base to steal from the state, so the California Legislature turned a blind eye.

No longer.

I mean look at Thousand Oaks and its blighted Civic Arts Plaza and new City Hall.

Then, look at the surrounding Thousand Oaks Blvd area which the Redevelopment Agency was formed to help.

NPR Executives Caught On Video – Better off without Federal Funding – Later in the lunch, Schiller explains that NPR would be better positioned free of federal funding. “Well frankly, it is clear that we would be better off in the long-run without federal funding,” he says. “The challenge right now is that if we lost it all together we would have a lot of stations go dark.”

When one of O’Keefe’s associates asked, “How confident are you, with all the donors that are available, if they should pull the funding right now that you would survive?,” Schiller answered this way: “Yes, NPR would definitely survive and most of the stations would survive.”

That is precisely the opposite answer Schiller’s boss, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation), gave at a press conference Monday in Washington. “We take [federal defunding] very, very seriously,” she said. “It would have a profound impact we believe on our ability – of public broadcasting’s ability – to deliver news and information.”

At the Café Milano lunch, Schiller said he’s “very proud of” how NPR fired Juan Williams. “What NPR stood for is non-racist, non-bigoted, straightforward telling of the news and our feeling is that if a person expresses his or her opinion, which anyone is entitled to do in a free society, they are compromised as a journalist,” he said. “They can no longer fairly report.”
With that, Schiller once again directly contradicted NPR’s public statements. At her Monday press conference, Vivian Schiller apologized for the way it handled the Williams matter. “We handled the situation badly,” she said. “We acted too hastily and we made some mistakes. I made some mistakes.”

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Read the entire piece.

Defund these idiots and they should fire this idiot for being a moron, especially with regards to Juan Williams.

Committee chairman Henry Perea, a Fresno Democrat, placed the bill on the committee's "suspense file" after a lengthy hearing but the committee's majority Democrats appear from their comments to be ready to approve it. Perea said the vote may come within a few weeks.

Backed by a coalition of public employee unions and California's brick-and-mortar retailers, including Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, Assembly Bill 153 is patterned after a New York law that is now undergoing judicial scrutiny. State tax officials say it could raise as much as a billion dollars a year if enacted.

Technically, Californians who buy goods from out-of-state on-line sellers are liable for "use taxes," equivalent to sales taxes, on their purchases, and there's a line on personal income tax returns for reporting such purchases. But very few buyers pay use taxes, and state officials say there's no practical way to collect them.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that states cannot compel mail order retailers to collect sales taxes unless they have a "physical presence" in the state, such as a store. New York's law contends that when Amazon or another on-line retailer uses "affiliates" in the state to serve customers, it creates a "nexus" that satisfies the Supreme Court decision.

Amazon, however, warned in a letter to state officials last week that if Skinner's bill, or one of the other similar measures, becomes law, it will cancel its contracts with thousands of California affiliates. Other mail order networks have made similar threats, the committee was told.

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The Dems will pass this bill but since this is a tax increase, they will need a 2/3rds vote to pass the full Assembly and Senate